ASHWAUBENON – There always was the risk of a letdown for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men, just three days after a thrilling upset win over Horizon League favorite Oakland.

A letdown it was.

UWGB lost 67-63 to IUPUI on Tuesday night in front of 1,932 at the Resch Center, giving the Jaguars their first conference win as the newest member of the 10-team league.

On paper, this was a game many might have felt the Phoenix should win.

IUPUI had won just three of its first 13 games, entered having lost eight of its last nine and had not yet won a road game in its first nine attempts.

None of that mattered. Not when the Phoenix shot 1-for-17 from 3-point range. Not when it had several bad turnovers. Certainly not when it went more than 12 minutes in the second half without a field goal after finishing the first half without hitting a shot in the final 5 minutes, 14 seconds.

This looked like the Phoenix team during the nonconference season, not the one that had won its first two league games.

“It wasn’t a very good night for us at all,” UWGB coach Linc Darner said. “That’s sometimes what you worry about with a young, inexperienced group of guys that have never been in this spot. They have two great wins to start conference play and you got a third one (against) a team that has played two on the road that is coming up here. You try to tell them that you have to be ready from the get-go.

“We got off to a decent start, not a great start, a decent start. But things we did against Oakland and Detroit, we were focused in on scouting reports. We were focused in on everything. Probably for some reason our guys listened to their press clippings and things like that and probably weren’t as focused as we need to be. That’s our fault as a coaching staff.”

The Phoenix led by as much as eight points early on and was up by seven with two minutes left in the first half, but a jumper from Jaguars junior forward Evan Hall and back-to-back 3-pointers from freshman reserve guard Jaylen Minnett tied the game at 33-33 entering halftime.

UWGB was 11-for-15 on field goals from inside the arc in the first 20 minutes, but 0-for-9 from long range compared to 6-for-12 for IUPUI.

The Phoenix’s defense kept it close despite the cold stretch on offense, coming up with nine steals and forcing 14 turnovers entering intermission.

Along with the scoring drought to end the half, the Phoenix had 10 of its 15 turnovers that mostly were self-inflicted and had nothing to do with what IUPUI was forcing. It had difficulty just dribbling at times, with the ball going off their legs or double dribbling.

To Darner, that showed a lack of focus and not being into the situation. He didn’t see any of that against Detroit or Oakland, when the Phoenix combined for 39 assists and 21 turnovers. It had 13 assists to go with those 15 miscues against the Jaguars.

IUPUI built an 11-point lead with 7:11 remaining while UWGB struggled from the field. After junior guard Sandy Cohen III made a layup with 13:27 remaining, the Phoenix didn’t make another field goal until David Jesperson’s jumper with 1:04 left. It ended a stretch of nine straight missed shots.

UWGB still was able to work itself back into the game because of its work at the line, hitting 11 free throws during the drought.

PJ Pipes Jr. cut the Jaguars’ lead to 62-60 on a free throw with 32 seconds left, and it looked like the Phoenix might tie the game a few moments later. But freshman guard Hunter Crist was called for a foul in the backcourt after the Phoenix bench felt he cleanly knocked the ball away from Aaron Brennan before the two made contact with each other.

“First off, I don’t know if we should have been in that situation,” Darner said. “Everybody always says it comes down to the end of the game, but everything leads up to the end of the game.

“I thought it was a clean deflection, a clean steal. But the officials saw something else. … sometimes officials think you are trying to foul. We had it to a one possession game there and we were going to try to see if we could get a steal there in the backcourt. I told the officials the next two times that we are going for the steal, we are going for the jump there if we could have gotten them trapped.”

UWGB now hits the road for four straight. Darner certainly would have taken a 2-1 start to conference when it started last month. It’s just the way it happened that’s disappointing after such a big win over Oakland.

“When you get to 2-0, you want to get greedy,” Darner said. “We had a great opportunity tonight. Now, we have got a tough stretch coming.”

Notable notes

► Cohen was named the Horizon League player of the week after helping lead the Phoenix to wins over Detroit and Oakland, while Pipes was named the league’s freshman of the week.

Cohen averaged 20.5 points in the two games, including matching a career high with 24 points against the Titans on Thursday. He had his first career double-double against Oakland on Saturday, finishing with 17 points and 12 rebounds along with three blocks and three steals.

► It was a Purdue reunion at the Resch, with IUPUI assistant Roy Hairston and Darner together again. Darner was a student assistant at Purdue in 1994-95 during Hairston’s first season with the Boilermakers. Darner played four seasons at Purdue from 1990 to '94, while Hairston played two seasons from 1994 to '96.

Up next

UWGB will play at Cleveland State at 6 p.m. Thursday. The Vikings are 3-11 and have lost five straight, including an 80-77 home loss to Youngstown State on Monday.